While Bitcoin seems to be on the road to recovery, the last few months have not been great for the crypto industry in the United States. It has been revealed that Binance, one of the biggest exchanges in the world, considered shutting its doors in the country. This also comes as popular UK digital bank Revolut will stop offering crypto services to US users.
Just last month, Nasdaq announced that it would be pressing pause on plans to release a crypto custody business. This comes after years of heavy crypto adoption in the US.
At the root of all of this is the unstable regulatory structure in the United States when it comes to crypto. The Securities and Exchange Commission has famously gone after Coinbase, Ripple Labs, and several other big crypto companies. This, naturally, has caused some tension and anxiety within the market. Large companies sense hostility from regulators, and crypto users are on edge about how their precious tokens will be seen in the eyes of the law.
Rather than deal with endless back-and-forth with US regulators, some companies find it easier to cut ties with the US as a whole. But this exodus will have a massive impact not just on the companies themselves but on the US-based crypto users who rely on their services.
First, this sort of thing rocks market confidence. The current price movement of major tokens might be encouraging, but it is hard to stay optimistic about the future of crypto in America when billion-dollar corporations feel like they cannot go up against existing regulations. And this sort of environment then leads to anxiety about using cryptocurrency.
For those who use cryptocurrency speculatively, companies exiting the space means that they can’t access the sort of services they usually do. Revolut exiting the market means, for example, that there is one less service that American crypto users can turn to. If this keeps up, buying and selling cryptocurrency with major companies in the US will be much less accessible and this undoes years of progress in the crypto space.
And any major changes in Americans’ access to crypto will impact the overall market price of major tokens, given that America is one of the biggest crypto markets in the world. Then we have to consider those who don’t use cryptocurrency speculatively. Many users leverage cryptos for gambling on sites like Lucky Block casino which have become very popular. There are also people who use cryptocurrency for domestic purchases and paying bills. These people, unlike speculative traders, do not thrive in a volatile environment but prefer price stability.
In the best-case scenario, such people will see their tokens fluctuate wildly in value because of the unstable market environment. In the worst-case scenario, they will face roadblocks in buying cryptocurrency because of the exit of market giants.
This whole saga further highlights the importance of better crypto regulation in the US for the sake of both the companies and people in the space.
